Sound Medicine
My godmother aunt was in town recently for her 80th birthday, and so we spent a morning visiting rock and crystal shops. That’s the kind of places we visit together—places where aspiring healers go to get their supplies. I usually buy copal and charcoal or palo santo. She loves the rocks and crystals. In a back corner of one of the larger shops we visited were signing bowls, deep glass reservoirs that generate a pitch tuned to a certain key and aligned with one of the seven main chakras of the body.
I’ve been curious about those for a while, and so I picked up the mallet and began gently swirling it around the top edge of the bowl. In moments, the bowl emitted a strong, steady, and radiant high pitched tone. Suddenly, I was surrounded by others, curious about the sound. Playing it seemed to come natural to me. I asked to see another bowl in the key of E, aligned to the solar plexus chakra.
The clerk brought out a larger bowl and I began to play that one. I immediately knew that was the one. It truly sang to me. I did not think that morning that I would be the owner of a sound bowl, but soon enough, I was. The store clerk congratulated me on my purchase. On the car ride to the next place, my aunt and I both commented that we could still feel the vibration of the sound in our chests.
I brought my aunt back to my cousin’s house and she asked me to come inside to play my bowl. I was a little shy, still not knowing if what I was doing was anything at all. My cousins gathered around and I started to play the bowl again. One cousin closed her eyes and appeared to be concentrating. Her daughter called from her bedroom asking what the noise was. My cousin’s husband suddenly sat up from where he was sitting and said he didn’t like the feeling he was having in his chest. He said the sound was leaving him unsettled.
I stopped playing and he shared his wonder and concern. Was this a good thing or a bad thing, he asked? How long was this feeling going to last?
By some instinct, I asked him, “When was the last time you laughed really hard? Like laughed to the point where it felt like your sides were splitting?” He paused and thought. He could not recall a time. Then he thought of something: one of his TV shows made him laugh really hard.
“Watch that,” I said. “It seems like you just need to laugh, move some energy that’s blocked there in your chest.”
He liked the idea, said he would try that.
Later, I had heard that the feeling had subsided for him, and that he was no longer unsettled. My cousin also reported that after hearing the singing bowl, her blood glucose dropped considerably.
Whatever it was, the singing bowl had opened a channel of energy for them, and for me. I’ll play the bowl now in between work calls and tasks, or at the 3 pm drop in energy, or when I need to refocus my thoughts. It’s quite amazing how it works.
While some folks turn to pills or tabs to feel better, or drugs or alcohol, or alternative methods like acupuncture, aromatherapy, or reiki, sound is a medicine all its own. As it opens and heals and soothes, it also stirs and awakens and disrupts. It does what it’s supposed to do in its own unique way for that unique person.
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Photo by Magic Bowls on Unsplash
